I Got Nothing That I Asked For but Everything I Had Hoped For – Don N.

About This Speaker Tape

Don opens by calling AA a modern-day miracle and gives thanks for the grace that carried him out of a seemingly hopeless drinking life. He grew up in an alcoholic home in Canada, swore he'd never drink, but took his first swallow of gin as a teenager at a girl's house and felt instantly transformed — taller, braver, the girls suddenly beautiful. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940, became a pilot, was shot down three times, and used the war as his perfect excuse to drink. Marriage to a nursing sister named Norma, two children, a news reporter job, and a move to a small Ontario town all failed to slow him down.

By Christmas 1947, at 26, he'd embarrassed his family at a church function, his business was near bankruptcy, and a clergyman left a copy of the Big Book at his home. Don threw the book in the corner and told his wife that if Higher Power were real, He'd perform a miracle in this day and age. A drinking buddy named Hal got the DTs on New Year's Day 1948, found AA, and began hanging around Don's store clean-shaven and cheerful. On February 19, 1948 — after a weekend drunk and a silent wife he couldn't face — Don agreed to one AA meeting in Haileybury as a visitor, claiming he wanted to help his brother. He arrived at 8 p.m., got home at 2:30 a.m., and never drank again.

Don explains alcoholism as a three-fold disease — physical (a hereditary blood-sugar malfunction he manages with chocolate at his bedside), emotional, and spiritual. He shares definitions he had to look up because of his limited education: honesty as the total absence of any intent to deceive, humility as not thinking less of me but thinking of me less, love as a force that enables you to give other things. He compares alcoholism to body odor — the drunk is always the last to know, and the only treatment is regular meetings the way bathing is regular soap and water. After 33 years averaging four meetings a week, he still goes because he loves the effect it produces in his life.

He closes with the miracle he demanded back in 1947: AA turned his house into a home, gave his wife back a husband and his children back a father, and gave his mother back not one sober son but two — his older brother got 16 years before his death. He recites an anonymous Confederate soldier's prayer about asking for strength and being made weak to learn obedience, and ends with the Big Book's invitation to abandon yourself to Higher Power, clear away the wreckage of your past, and join the fellowship of the spirit.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opens calling AA a modern-day miracle and the grace of Higher Power the unmerited love and favor
• 3:00 Budgie-bird joke about the nuns, Clyde and Clive, and answered prayers
• 8:00 Growing up in an alcoholic home, father and older brother both practicing alcoholics
• 11:00 First drink of gin at a girl's house — swears he'll swallow it without making a face, feels six inches taller
• 15:00 Joins Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940, becomes a pilot, shot down three times, uses war as drinking excuse
• 22:00 Christmas 1947 — clergyman leaves Big Book, Don throws it in the corner, challenges Higher Power to perform a miracle today
• 30:00 Hal gets DTs New Year's Day 1948, finds AA, starts showing up at Don's store sober and clean
• 36:00 February 19, 1948 — sneaks up back alleys to first meeting in Haileybury, gets home at 2:30 a.m., never drinks again
• 45:00 Definitions his sponsors taught him: honesty as absence of intent to deceive, humility as not thinking less of me but thinking of me less
• 58:00 The miracle — house became a home, wife got back a husband, five sisters got back two brothers when older brother also got sober